Recent trends are reviewed in support of the contention that urban education is returning to the educational mainstream. The emphasis on professional accountability and the principal as instructional leader, the promise of effective schools research, stronger school-business relationships, and more effective public relations are discussed. (MJL)

School boards by state statutes are alone accountable for the education of their communities' youth. What's needed, the writer contends, is a rectification of the statutes so that all parties to negotiations are accountable. (Editor)

Asserts that failure to consider carefully the purposes and uses to which standardized tests are put can place barriers in the way of equal educational opportunities for minority students. Proposes six precautions for ensuring that standardized tests can be used without endangering equal educational opportunities. (PGD)

Reviews the principal's role in instructional accountability, management systems, communications, remedial programs, teacher inservice programs, teacher recruitment, and testing. (Author/WD)

Strategies for meeting the challenges and responsibilities that the accountability movement implies for the school administrator, particularly the principal. (Author/MLF)

True educational restructuring requires a vision of learning, examples of visionary school-level restructuring, and a coordinated plan at the local, state, and national levels for inviting and helping schools accept choice, responsibility, and accountability. One strategy calls for site-based flexibility and development of educational innovation…

Reform measures have had little effect on increasing high school students' academic performance. Instructional quality is largely determined by the attitude, competence, and talent of teachers and principals responsible for delivering classroom instruction. Contracts should be revised to increase teachers' starting salaries, enforce accountability…

The essential purpose of education indicator systems is to assess direction, mission, and strategy. For state officials, this means analyzing state educational aims and determining whether they are being met. Using current state indicator systems for accountability purposes is premature. Quality considerations, relationship analysis limitations,…

If substantive changes are to occur in high schools, discrepancies must be identified that will improve student learning. Principals must be alert to the opportunities for change presented by teachers, parents, and students when they discuss their problems and successes. Principals must become both problem seekers and problem solvers and gather…

Focuses on the relationship of accountability to the educator's ability to conduct inquiry into personal professional roles and to provide assistance to professional peers who are conducting similar inquiries. A positive intervention model is developed by emphasizing the educational experience of the practitioner. (Editor/RK)

Personalization is achieved when teachers and students have the time and the desire to develop a relationship. One Georgia high school lends itself to personalization by encouraging a mentoring relationship between teachers and students. Developing academic teaching teams and block schedules for all grades was the key to reducing teacher isolation…

Proposes guidelines for principals attempting to evaluate teachers' grading policies. Principals should understand teachers' perspectives, ask for copies of their grading policies, be wary of traits (like "effort") not measuring achievement, consider grading information quality, think about homework's role, expect teachers to use numbers and…

The environment most characterizing today's public schools is continuous change, spurred by increased demands for performance and accountability. However, discontinuous change, in which organizations must question basic operating assumptions, is imminent. Continuous learning must be built into an organizations' fabric and it needs acceptable…

This article reports how secondary principals perceive the status of the accountability movement and their professional job responsibilities in the context of accountability. The data were collected from a nationally representative sample of secondary principals during the Schools and Staffing Survey 1999-2000. Respondents reported that there were…

Although the successful middle level school was designed to address both the affective and cognitive development of young adolescents (NMSA 2003), academic achievement is the outcome of paramount importance in the current political context of accountability, high-stakes testing, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In their efforts to reform,…